Courses (1087)

There comes a point in almost every endgame where the variations run dry. The pieces are few, the position is quiet, and no forcing sequence promises anything at all. For an inexperienced player this is where the trouble starts — the reflex is to keep calculating, to burn energy searching for a line that simply isn't there. For players like Capablanca or Petrosian, this is precisely where the game was decided.
That reversal sits at the heart of Schematic Thinking in the Endgame by IM Boroljub Zlatanovic. When a position offers nothing to calculate, the decisive skill becomes something quieter and harder to teach: building a long-term plan the opponent cannot prevent, and finding the ideal square for every piece — the king included — in the unhurried manner Capablanca made his own.

There is a kind of player who spends an entire career inside 1.d4, 1.c4, and 1.Nf3, and never once feels the pull of 1.e4. GM Tamás Bánusz was one of them. Then, by his own account, he had "a sudden moment of madness," opened 1.e4 for the first time, and went looking for a way to handle the 2…d6 Sicilian. What he found was 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.c3 — and, in his words, he fell in love.

Reykjavik, 1972, Game 5. Boris Spassky plays the Nimzo-Indian's most popular system, and Bobby Fischer answers with an idea that looks almost careless: he captures on c3 without waiting for a3, voluntarily giving up the bishop pair. Then comes the point — ...d6, ...e5, and a blockade that slowly suffocates White's position. Twenty-seven moves later, Spassky resigns.
That blockading concept, refined by GM Robert Hübner in the late 1960s and 1970s, is the foundation of GM Mitrabha Guha's new course. Against the Rubinstein System with 4.e3 — by far White's most popular reply — Guha recommends exactly the Hübner treatment: 4...c5 followed by an early exchange on c3 and the strategic clamp with ...d6 and ...e5. It is a repertoire built on plans, not on memorizing long lines of theory.

Part 1 gave White a reliable structure against Black's classical setups. Part 2 answers a different question: what happens when the opponent has done the homework? GMs Alexey Dreev and Pier Luigi Basso built this course around Black's sharpest, most computer-tested tries against 3.Bf4 — the exact positions a well-prepared opponent will steer toward today. The repertoire doesn't just patch holes; it turns the London into what Dreev calls "a complete, future-proof weapon."

When Vladimir Kramnik answered 1.e4 with the Berlin Defence across his 2000 World Championship match with Garry Kasparov, he wasn't reviving a forgotten line so much as redefining the terms of engagement. The Berlin doesn't fight for the initiative; it quietly denies White one. Many years later, that logic still holds at the very top, which is exactly what makes the opening so awkward to face. You cannot refute the Berlin — but you don't have to let it go quiet, either.
The Ruy Lopez for White – Part 4 is GM Kalyan Arjun's response to that challenge. Rather than chase a knockout that isn't there, he builds a repertoire designed to keep the position tense — to preserve small imbalances long after Black expected the game to settle into a lifeless, drawn-out endgame.

Openings usually take the name of an inventor or a city. 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.g3 took the name of a player instead — not because Nodirbek Abdusattorov invented it, but because he made it his own and kept winning with it. Others noticed. Gukesh, Praggnanandhaa, and Rapport picked it up, and what had been a modest third move turned into a recognized way to fight for the initiative against 1...e5. GM Pier Luigi Basso's A Powerful 3.g3 Repertoire against 1...e5 traces how that transformation happened and hands you the ideas behind it.

Most players who face 1.Nf3 d5 reach for the classical 2.g3 Réti or transpose with 2.c4 — GM Ioannis Papaioannou offers a third path with 2.b3, keeping all the flexibility of the Réti while sidestepping its most analysed theory. Built from his camp on the system, the course meets every Black setup — ...Bf5, ...Bg4, ...e6, ...g6 and ...c5 — with clear plans built on long-range pressure from the b2-bishop, the well-timed light-squared-bishop trade, and a principled d2–d4. The result is a complete, low-theory repertoire for White that poses real problems from the very first moves — preparation your opponents are rarely ready for.

Before the 2024 Candidates Tournament, GM Arjun Kalyan handed Praggnanandhaa an idea in a training camp: the sharp early ...f5 break in the Ruy Lopez, reached after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 f5.
Then Praggnanandhaa used it to beat Vidit Gujrathi, and a little-known sideline became something White players could no longer afford to ignore.
That episode sets the tone for Part 3. This is not a course about the main line 4...Nf6 — it is about everything Black plays on the 4th move instead of it.

The King's Indian Defense has never been an opening for players content with a draw. It is the choice of World Champions like Fischer, Tal, Spassky and Kasparov, and modern stars such as Hikaru Nakamura and Teimour Radjabov, who wanted to fight for the initiative as Black from the very first moves. Its logic is deliberately provocative: Black concedes the center, lets White build it, and stakes everything on dynamic counterplay.
That fighting spirit has a precise face in this repertoire. In the Classical main line, GM Aydin Suleymanli does not steer into the most heavily analyzed channels — he reaches for 7...Bg4, a rare idea in which Black is perfectly content to give up the light-squared bishop for White's knight. It is the King's Indian bargain in miniature: trade a small concession for clarity and activity, then play for the win.

Every Sicilian player has felt it: years invested in the Najdorf, the Dragon, or the Classical Sicilian, only to face a 2.Nc3 or 2.c3 from an opponent who clearly knows the position better. The statistics explain why. The Open Sicilian shows up far more often across a career than any single Anti-Sicilian system, so the experience naturally tilts away from these sidelines.
That imbalance is exactly where games get lost — not to superior chess, but to superior preparation in territory the Black player rarely visits.